Bhubaneswar: Putting full stop on all speculations over the third Rajya Sabha seat from Odisha, the BJP nominated Union Railway and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for the ensuing RS poll in Odisha.
Governing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has also extended its support for Shri Vaishnaw saying “for the larger interest of the State’s Railways and Telecom Development”.
BJD President and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has issued a statement in this regard.
From this nomination, it was almost clear that Shri Vaishnaw is all set to re-nominated to the Upper House of the Parliament from Odisha once again during the ensuing polls for three RS seats.
He was earlier elected to RS in 2019 from BJP with the support of Governing BJD. So, it is expected that the same equation will be followed by the BJD and BJP this time too because the BJD has nominated only two candidates even though it has the majority to win all three seats in the ensuing poll for three RS seats.
Three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha will fall vacant as Ashwini Vaishnaw, Amar Patnaik and Prashanta Nanda are due to retire from the Upper House in April this year. So, elections for the three seats will be held on February 27 between 9 am and 4 pm. The counting of votes will be conducted at 5 pm the same day.
Though the Governing BJD has a clear majority to win all three RS seats, it has, so far nominated two candidates Debashish Samantaray and Subhasish Khuntia. And, both candidates filed their nominations on 13 February.
This move of the Governing BJD had created speculation over the nomination of a third candidate.
Union Minister Shri Vaishnaw is reaching Bhubaneswar today. He will file his nomination papers on Thursday as today is a holiday in view of Saraswati Puja.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party has 22 members, the Congress has nine. Meanwhile, one seat is vacant in the Assembly.
In 2019, Shri Vaishnaw was elected to the Upper House as BJP candidate with the help of BJD. As the BJD has not announced the name of a third candidate, Vaishnaw’s name was doing rounds for his re-election to Rajya Sabha from Odisha in the political circle here.
The Union Railway Minister, who hails from Rajasthan, was an IAS officer serving as Collector of Cuttack and Balasore districts in Odisha. The 1994-batch IAS officer had worked till 2003. He quit the IAS job in 2010. He joined the BJP in 2019 and then directly elected to RS and then became Cabinet Minister with two powerful portfolios.
Perhaps for the first time in Indian history, a bureaucrat turned politician has been given such due importance at Central Level.
